Are you safe, sovereign, and aligned with our policy?

Between 2025 and 2028, three regulatory milestones define the next decade of European orbital compute:

• ITU World Radiocommunication Conference 2027 (WRC-27). The next spectrum allocation round for satellite services. The filings happen in 2025–2026; the decisions in 2027 are binding for the next 10–20 years. A European team filing now locks the spectrum lane; a team filing in 2028 inherits whatever the incumbents left.
• EU Space Law (the proposed EU Space Law, currently in legislative process; expected adoption 2026–2027). Sets the EU registration, authorisation, and supervision regime for space activities. Authorisation as a European-controlled operator requires demonstrable technical capability AND European ownership and control. A young European team with a credible methodology meets both tests from day one.
• National space-agency frameworks — the German Bundesagentur für Raumfahrt (DLR), the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment (with the Finnish Space Agency), the French CNES, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). Each national agency has a budget cycle and an authorisation pathway; the architectures designed in 2026–2027 will be the ones that win the 2028–2030 cycle.

The EU sovereignty test for orbital compute has four concrete components:

• Ownership: European-controlled entity. HQ in an EU member state. The team is European; the cap table is European; the majority of the value created stays in Europe.
• Control: European-citizen or EU-resident operators on the critical path. No foreign-veto clauses on spectrum, orbit, or customer data. European management decisions under European jurisdiction.
• Data residency: EU-jurisdiction ground stations for all customer data. EU-compliant storage and processing. No third-country access without explicit customer authorisation under GDPR.
• Supply-chain resilience: European-controlled architecture with non-European bus-supplier as integrator (under the supply-side partner model in /partners). The architecture decisions, mission design, and operations stay European even when the bus is from a non-European prime.

Orbital debris: every constellation architecture commits to a post-mission disposal plan (deorbit within 5 years of end-of-life, per the FCC 2020 rule and the IADC guidelines). The European orbital-compute architecture uses the standard 5-year deorbit commitment plus an on-board propulsion system for controlled re-entry; the bus supplier's standard disposal sequence applies. No novel debris-generating technologies.

AI governance: the EU AI Act (entered into force 2024) classifies AI systems by risk. The orbital-compute infrastructure is a compute substrate — not a deployed AI system — so the compute layer is not directly regulated by the AI Act. The customers deploying AI workloads on the constellation remain responsible for AI Act compliance on their applications; the SLA contract documents the division of responsibility. This is the same division-of-responsibility pattern as hyperscaler cloud providers.

The European orbital-compute work happens in four regulatory lanes, each with its own partnership shape:

• ITU filings (2025–2026 cycle, decisions WRC-27). The international spectrum-allocation lane. Active work: JP to fill in (which national administration is the filing lead — Bundesnetzagentur, FICORA, ARCEP, or AGCOM?).
• EU Space Law (adoption expected 2026–2027). The EU authorisation regime for space activities. Active conversations: JP to fill in (DG DEFIS / DG CONNECT — which directorate is the authorisation lead for orbital-compute operators?).
• National space-agency 2028–2030 budget cycles. The German DLR, Finnish Business Finland Space programme, French CNES, Austrian FFG. Active conversations: JP to fill in (which national agency has the orbital-compute funding line, and what's the application window?).
• ESA programmes. ARTES (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems), the ESA In-Orbit Demonstration programme, the OPS-SAT mission line. Active conversations: JP to fill in (which ESA programme is the right fit for the AI-native mission design methodology?).

Status note. The architecture decisions made in 2026–2027 will be the ones that win the 2028–2030 cycles. A European team filing now — in active conversation with the right programmes — owns the lane for the next decade. The site will be updated with specific partner names as the conversations move from exploratory to committed.